The expanding man

A colleague recently invited me to a virtual dinner online. I’m not precisely sure how dining works in a Second Life context, but I sure aims to find out. I’m actually nervous about it: I don’t have formal dining clothes, and as a noob, I’m a bit concerned about etiquette — a valid concern when you can’t always control what your hands are doing at any given time.

Anyhow, an SL dinner seems strangely appropriate, since I’ve been trying to shed a couple of pounds over the last few weeks. I’m pretty close to my goal, thanks to the twin miracles of exercise and starvation, so I will return to eating real food next week — even marked it on my calendar.

Any world will do

Get a first life.

Leave home

Away on vacation until Jan. 15 and probably won’t be posting much. But I’ll be thinking of you, dear reader.

Ho ho whores

In Walgreens the other day (actually it was three weeks before Halloween) I noticed they had put an animatronic Santa Claus just inside the doorway to greet visitors. It was almost life-sized, and had been rigged with some sort of motion detector so that when you got anywhere near it, it started belching out distorted Christmas music and ho-ho-hos while flailing about in some mechanical approximation of jolliness. After bruising my foot on its shin and finally unplugging the damned thing, it occurred to me how surreal a world it is where fake humans are employed to spread the Christmas spirit. It offends me at some gut level, and I’m not even Christian. (By all rights, they should be mad as hell!) It’s like some Pavlovian thing where Walgreens rings the bell and we’re supposed to start salivating over discounted Flowbees. At least human Santas usually have enough sense to shut up when they see the look in my eyes.

Anyhow, my antidote to this seasonal plague is to watch the first half of “A Christmas Carol” and listen to music I personally think better represents the spirit of the season than the usual holiday pablum. Here’s one selection:

Fairytale of New York

Double helix in the sky tonight

Recent science in the news: British scientists develop synthetic gecko. Well, OK, not the whole gecko, but it’s still pretty cool. Meanwhile, our friends on the other side of the pond give us a new way to look down on ourselves. Maybe there’s a message here.

Pearl of the Ninth Square

Wanda Jackson is a bona fide living legend. With her paper-shredder vocals and vampy attitude she helped define rock and roll side by side with the likes of Elvis Presley and Johnnie Cash.

They’re gone, but Wanda’s still among us. Do yourself a favor and see her tonight, at Cafe Nine; $15, the Lustre Kings warm things up at 8.

Make sure she’s all in calico

OK. This is cool. My little cousins have their own blog. I love it.

… the end of a perfect day, distant lights, etc.

Last night. Wow. There’s a good reason they don’t let me in Scotland anymore. Thank god for Advil. Anyhow, great pizza and enjoyed getting to know you folks better.

Anyone who’s interested, here’s my schedule for next semester:

Media Law 552 (Halavais): Tuesday, 6:30
Writing for Interactive Media 506 (Hanley): Friday, 6:30

Park City Blues

Sigh. More corruption in Bridgeport. This is a big story and it’s got legs — Charles D. Smith is a former NBA star and is often talked about as a future candidate for mayor. One wonders how he will run the state’s biggest city if he can’t keep a lid on pilfering under his own nose.

Anyhow, I’m going to be wrapped up in this today and may be late for class. So if anybody’s taking notes and would be good enough to pass them along …

Wikipedia

So if someone told you you could make $100 million a year by putting someone’s stupid banner across the top of your blog, would you do it? Apparently, Wikipedia won’t.

In any case, I think it’s high time I ask the Scottish Cattle Board to pay up for the free publicity I’ve been giving their product.